Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien has said that he is “disturbed” by protests that took place outside a hotel housing refugees.
Roderic O’Gorman’s Department of Integration also condemned “any attempts to promote division and hostility”, as the Lord Mayor of Dublin expressed concerns that the “far right” were turning up at the demonstrations in Ballymun. It comes just weeks after Minister O’Gorman admitted to Dublin Live that he has concerns about a “small hardcore [group] of far-right activists in this country”.
Videos shared online in recent days show a group of protesters standing outside the Travelodge Hotel in Ballymun chanting “get them out”. The Department of Integration confirmed that there are 221 International Protection seekers staying in the hotel, nine of whom are children. Another 40 asylum-seekers are being accommodated in the Sentinel Building in Ballymun.
